"Everyone Is Mean to Bob Dylan and His Movie Except Me"

A special guest review by A. Bumer Krittick

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(Editor's note: Mr. Krittick is a 70-something year-old who somehow has access to the Internet. His opinions are strictly his own.)

I don't care what anybody says. I think Bob Dylan is good!

I saw some Internet commenters the other day say Bob Dylan is not good, and that they like somebody named Ariana something. Well, let me tell you, Bob Dylan is good! And I don't care if nobody agrees with me on that!

Seriously, some of these people make my teeth hurt. I saw someone named Anna98736579 in a Facebook group I belong to say that he wasn't as good as black musicians in his day, and it's racist to elevate him. Well, guess what? No less a Blues authority than Deaf Clementine Eisenhower once said, “Bob Dylan is one of the top three most soulful men I've ever met in my life. That boy plays good!” Also, in the movie A Complete Unknown, it is implied that Dylan had sex with a black woman! Checkmate, wokesters!

The best thing about A Complete Unknown is how well it shows that Bob Dylan is such an inscrutable genius. People really can't figure him out, he's so brilliant. And when he refuses to explain where he comes up with his poetic lyrics, it's such a middle finger to scrutable non-geniuses. Some people might say that a person who obsessively sings random stuff while being completely un-empathetic to the needs of anyone around him is autistic, but I know better. It's the inscrutability, stupid! Also the genius.

I don't know if the movie's quite fair to Woody Guthrie, who also needs my defense because none of the kids today talk about him enough, as it does portray him as disabled. Or maybe it's just extra layers of inscrutability. Whatever the case, if Bob endorsed him, he's a-OK in my book, pal.

It's hard to believe that there were ever record executives who didn't let Dylan play his own, brilliant songs, but movies have to make up some stuff, so it takes him a while in this story before they let him completely redefine folk. But what comes after that is accurate – people go to see him in concert and get mad because he doesn't play the songs exactly the way they want him to. Or in any way that resembles their original composition. People still think he's a bad live act today because of this. However, they're wrong, and I can prove it – I saw Dylan live five years ago, and he was good! I could even make out some of the words some of the time. How about that?

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I kind of hate to admit it, but I've always kind of wondered if I found Bob Dylan attractive, or whether it was just that his music is so arousing. Everyone else makes snide comments about how he looks like Vincent Price. But thanks to A Complete Unknown, Timothee Chalamet proves that Bob was totally handsome! I can say that because I'm secure in liking Bob Dylan, even though nobody else seems to. Why, he's practically obscure these days, at least to all my Internet friends I've never met or seen who keep insulting him. While I'm at it, you know who were a really great band? The Beatles! I'm tired of people not saying they are every five minutes.

Cinematographer Phedon Papamichael gives the whole movie the dark-with-highlights vibe of the work of classic Blues photographer Herman Leonard, just like the way Dylan has the vibe of classic Blues with his own highlights. That's some deep thinking, right there, just like the way Dylan thought up the metaphor of a rolling stone. Now that I think about it, after a person in the sixties was done rolling, they often got stoned! Hey, I just found a new layer of meaning! I told you he was an inscrutable genius!

Is the movie fair to Joan Baez? Hell, she always was a looker, but frankly lucky to even be in the orbit of Dylan. And how dare she ask him to play the songs that are popular? Everyone does that! An inscrutable genius does things differently, and you have to expect such unpredictability. Johnny Cash, as played by Boyd Holbrook in this movie, gets it (this director really should make a Johnny Cash movie next). Ask country musicians today and they'll have no idea. Fuck Hank Williams Jr.

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Don't get the idea that I'm some sort of elitist here. I don't just like the old music of my youth. I love newer stuff too, like Bruce Springsteen. He's for the working man. I don't think people really get that. But these are the same people who also don't know that Elvis was for the working man, too. Remember Elvis? I know not many people say this today, but I liked Elvis! It's a shame we don't hear anyone talk about him any more, like his influence has been completely forgotten. I don't know about many of my peers, but I'm still willing to stand up and defend Elvis, The Beatles, Bob Dylan, and The Rolling Stones. How does THAT feel?

If that makes me “weird,” so be it. I can't claim to be inscrutable. I wear my heart on my sleeve, and was always better at rattling off dirty limericks than being a warrior poet. I don't have enough years left in my life to try to listen to other things that I might not like – when society stopped explicitly catering to my needs and tastes, I tuned out. And I'm sick of having to come across comments that disagree with me online. They should ban those, or commit their authors to the Home for the Stupid.

The movie's called A Complete Unknown because nobody really knows Bob. Except maybe Bob himself, but he won't explain anything because he's such a brilliant human being, eighteen steps ahead of everyone else. The movie never gets inside his head because his head is Fort Knox, and it would take a real life psychological Ethan Hawke to break in. That's Tom Cruise's name, right? I only watched Mission: Impossible when it had Martin Landau and Barbara Bain. She was a babe.

To all the sneering idiots online who think Bob Dylan is a weird old guy who just goes “HEEEEEEEEE! HeeeeeVeeeeee! Reeeeeeeeeeee!” this movie has news for you. You're not a genius like him. And he was even hotter than you once, so there.

Ten stars out of five, because inscrutability.